


Catch Me When I Free Fall

by scratchedandinked



Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsions taken as hallucinations, Early (beginning of) jm, Elias is a terrible boss as always, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lines of verbal abuse, M/M, Mentions of Martin's mother - Freeform, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Ideation (previous & not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchedandinked/pseuds/scratchedandinked
Summary: As Martin had to come to understand it, performance reviews weren’t supposed to be painful. Like, not literally painful, obviously. But they also weren’t supposed to make Martin feel like he’d swallowed a knife or was trying to tie a cherry stem with the lining of his stomach. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to agonize over them for the entire week until his appointment time: Friday afternoon, 2 o’clock, up in Elias’s office.[Martin has his first performance review after the Archives ranks have changed. He thinks he knows how to handle critique, considering who raised him, but his assurance turns to overwhelming uncertainty-- and some unwanted visions. Luckily, Martin seems to have a pretty understanding (and nice?) immediate boss. Who knew?]Hurt/Comfort Week prompts: Self-worth issues, pretend, shaky hands
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: TMA Hurt/Comfort Week 2020! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893754
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	Catch Me When I Free Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I took the idea of Elias being able to drop-in knowledge AND being access memories and combined them into a kind of terrible power that should not be used in the workplace...

As Martin had to come to understand it, performance reviews weren’t supposed to be painful. Like, not _literally_ painful, obviously. But they also weren’t supposed to make Martin feel like he’d swallowed a knife or was trying to tie a cherry stem with the lining of his stomach. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to agonize over them for the entire week until his appointment time: Friday afternoon, 2 o’clock, up in Elias’s office.

Every day leading up to the meeting was like one long tick on a clock. The way a second hand spun over the same face day in and day out, but was constantly stuck in a new second, new present. Martin studied his own research as if from above, every moment of pause and thought amplified to feel like a waste: a deductible note he’d hear about in detail from his employer.

It would be like getting poor marks on an exam all over again. Martin would hold the paper in his hand, move over all the questions he’d made preventable mistakes on, quickly rewiring his own problem solving methods—only to hear all the ways he’d been _disappointing_ and _stupid_ and _just like his bloody fucking father_ for the entirety of dinner, making his mother so sick she’d never be able to eat.

At least Martin knew what to expect. At least, this time, Martin could _leave_ when it was all over.

Waiting outside Elias’s office, Martin tried to remember the _worst_ of his worst days; tried to prime himself to cry at things that _really_ mattered, so a quick slap on the wrist for unsurprisingly not knowing how to work in an archive wouldn’t seem so bad.

For once, poor ex-boyfriends came in handy, huh?

Finally, Martin’s co-worker—one of only two friends of the moment, actually—stepped out of Elias’s office. Tim looked disgruntled but not at all terribly put-off. He was rolling his eyes as he marched past, nearly missing Martin. His grumbled words were unintelligible, and Martin began to fear they were meant for him. Just as Martin went to lower his meek and ignorable wave, Tim pivoted on his heels suddenly and began walking backwards. His anger had gone and he’d apparently had a delayed, but joyful, reaction time.

“Hey, good luck! You do great work, Marty.” Tim said, snapping and pointing at Martin.

“I-It’s just Martin!” He called after Tim. Only those _shitty_ boyfriends ever called Martin that. And Tim was _not_ either of those things for Martin.

As Tim repeated his sentiment, correcting the name address, Martin had the sudden feeling that he was already _supposed_ _to be_ in Elias’s office. It was an urge that arose as if Martin had forgotten about it, but it was entirely new. He quickly stood and hurried from the lone, plastic chair to knock on Elias’s door. Martin opened despite not hearing an answer; he just _knew_ he was late.

“Hi. Sorry, if I’m—I was just outside and I—”

“Please, sit _down_ , Martin.” Elias motioned to the chair across from his desk. He didn’t look up from his work. Martin considered that, maybe, he didn’t have to.

As Martin sat down—still operating in the past week’s hyper-vigilance—he was forced to acknowledge that his more direct boss, Jon, was sitting at the short side of the desk. He had his own folder and notebook on the very small corner of real estate allowed to him among Elias’s many administrative forms. Martin was sure there was a dismissal form not-so-buried under Tim’s performance papers.

“Make yourself comfortable, Martin. Please.” Jon said shortly, although his tone was sharper at an edge _not_ directed at Martin. He glanced at Elias as he adjusted his chair and moved it closer to the desk corner. There hadn’t been any other words spoken. At least none that Martin heard, apparently. Maybe Tim had gotten quite the review—or given them one in return.

Jon looked at Elias with a certain irritation that Martin knew was familiar and comfortable on Jon’s face—it was _usually_ directed at him, actually—but it was far harsher. This frustration had weight and repetition. There was exhaustion haunting every blink of Jon’s eyes, nearly keeping them closed for far longer. Martin would have to be better about bothering— _checking in on_ —Jon.

“First performance review, yes?” Elias was asking questions without any inflection, as if they _weren’t_ questions. “Unfamiliar with how they work?”

“I-I’ve had—unfamiliar with your, uh, preferred form of critique.” Martin skirted around the very deep hole he’d dug for himself when lying to get his position.

“Well you’ve been here for a bit now—moved from the library. Why didn’t I know that?” Jon muttered, reading the top of his papers. “Huh. I guess that explains a lot.”

“I-Is there a problem?” Martin didn’t think he did _anything_ of note in the library. Hell, no one there even knew his name. It had just been a quiet place Martin where could, technically, be paid to loiter. Pitifully, that meant Martin missed school libraries throughout his twenties.

No one ever warned Martin about that. He expected missing being a teenager and being young and _delightfully naïve_ and blushing—but he didn’t think sitting beside his mother, trying to soothe her to sleep, would mean he’d miss sitting in a generic wooden chair in a wide, windowed reading room. That he'd miss becoming just one of those students and assignments whose entire lives passed through the same desks as thousands of other students. Martin never thought he’d dream of being invisible in a different way.

“No, no. Jon is just catching up on his employees.” Elias said evenly. He finally stopped writing. “Go on, Jon.”

“Well, looking here… _we know you lied on your CV_.” Jon said, nonchalantly flipping through the papers in his coffee-stained manila folder.

“W-What?” Martin swallowed thickly. He could feel his back molars vibrate—he’d never been so scared before. It felt alien inside of him. Like it had been put there.

“Looking here—looking _at_ it—we really liked your CV.” Jon said, as if he was repeating himself. “Very impressive.”

“O-Oh.” Martin felt the tension in him relax but not dissipate. Like when easing back the ends of a rubber band without removing it from your fingers. “T-Thank you.”

“Slightly more qualified than we’re bargaining you for.” Jon said under his breath. “We’re definitely underpaying _you_.”

“I—okay.” Martin wanted to apologize, but just to fill the immediate silence as Jon kept reading. _Why_ did his go-to response to a nothing comment have to be an _apology_? These men hired and paid him. He was _wanted_ in that room—

Something twisted inside Martin again. He didn’t like thinking more thought went into hiring him than _raising_ him.

“That’s something we’ll take back to payroll, Martin. Don’t you worry.” Elias said, smiling. “Your mother will be so proud of you; promotion first time around.”

“Elias,” Jon said quietly, lowering his papers. He looked at Elias over the top of his glasses, his hands flat on the desk. Martin thought he was going to push himself up to his feet, or at least back in his chair, but Jon stayed steady. “We’re not doing this.”

“I’m just starting conversation!” He tisked. “Jon really is the workaholic here. Don’t take a page out of his book. He’s not a model worker.”

“He’s not?” Martin didn’t think the review would also include _his own_ boss. “I-I mean, I think Jon does very nice work. Very _constant_ work. That is nice— _good_ work.”

“I just have different work, Martin. _Nothing you could handle_.”

Jon’s words should have cut with far more intensity, should have been like gravel in his mouth, but they were light. Almost like a song untangling finally from his lips.

Martin blinked, unsure if the feeling inside of him was actually fear and not some bubble of absolute _insanity_ about to disrupt his entire career.

“Nothing you couldn’t handle, given the chance.” Jon said. It was as if the second hand—the one hovering over Martin and his dragging day—had jerked back, repeating itself, but not echoing.

“Perhaps if we need a new—or perhaps _co_ -Archivist—I’ll pass your name along, Martin.” Elias clicked his pen. Martin couldn’t help but notice he actually _closed_ the pen. “Wouldn’t mother be proud? _Half an archivist. Can’t handle the job but getting the full salary. A true scam artist—but you already knew you carried that title_.”

“P-Pardon me?”

“Artist? Tim tells me you write _poetry_.” Elias continued, eyebrows raised.

Martin’s piece, _Exodus and Exile_ , shot before his eyes unexpectedly. A compiled prose piece of every time his mother had threatened him with a guilt trip to stop him from leaving—or daring him to walk out the door and get out of her sight. It hadn’t begun as an art piece, but rather a very memorable friend that could supply Martin with every reason for getting his new flat, or staying home for a holiday, or leaving the man who reminded him _too_ much of her, or being kind to himself on days that it all felt like _his fault_ —

“I- how does Tim know that?”

“Not Tim?” Elias tapped his chin. “Oh! It was Jon! You told me, didn’t you, Jon?”

Jon didn’t look up from his papers but began to glare at the words written on them. “I did _not_.”

“Oh, you did.” Elias reached over and, unnervingly, pat Jon on the back.

Martin had never seen Elias touch other human being before. He operated on such a different level than the rest of them, Martin always assumed there was some merged cells of reality overlapping. Seeing Jon’s back bow from the short pressure made Martin tense up again. He felt an urge to empathize _disgust_ —the same that was shooting across Jon’s face. “I think it’s a very impressive pursuit— _too bad you just aren’t any good at it, Martin_.”

“Elias, cut it out.” Jon said with a deep sigh.

“ _Good thing you got a real job, huh? So Mother Dearest stops pestering you to get off your pathetic, spoiled haunches and became a real man. Real member of society, unlike your father. But, then again, being a lousy **beatnik** —a flowering **sissy** —was all you were really cut out for, considering **who** exactly made you. You had no choice in the matter. You’re just doing what you were told. What God made you for_.” Elias smiled. “Isn’t that right?”

Martin’s teeth were humming and his eardrums felt like they were buttons ready to be pushed, popped open again, ready to hear _more_. He was drowning despite taking heavy, quivering breaths. The white noise—almost _static_ —that blanketed the room felt like rows and waves of pale heat running over his face and down to his feet. He thought the floor would fall out beneath him and Martin would free fall back—again.

Stumble back and fall _down down down_ to the landing of his household steps, clutching and scrambling for purchase at each bump and crash on the way down. Martin hadn’t meant to fall, had he? Been too careless. Hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going while listening to his mother berate him from her bedroom. So little attention in fact, he was facing the entire wrong direction.

Martin had never admitted to himself before that the fall had been anything _but_ an accident—that it was just something that _happened_ and reshaped his nose in the new and slightly uneven way he sported then—and he wasn’t sure when he’d decided he ever _would_ admit such a thing. That secret had been buried even from Martin himself.

Martin blinked back to Elias’s office, nearly with shovel in hand and up to his knees in dirt—and tears in his eyes. What was happening to him?

“Martin?” Jon said quietly, emerging from the static as if breaching water.

But Martin was already rushing out of the office, trembling with the doorknob. His hands were afraid to hold anything too tightly, like he was a moment from finding a tangible trowel to begin uncovering more of himself he’d swore was a fleeting phase of resistance—to what and to whom, Martin was embarrassed to acknowledge: it was the very man he was then, crying and leaving the office of his _two_ bosses. He’d wanted to resist acknowledging there was potential within him, so he didn’t have to fight his mother _and_ himself to just see what in the world was worth his time. Was just _worth it_.

Martin had prepared for incoming critique the only way he ever knew how—but accidentally brought up everything he was unprepared to deal with at a moment’s notice, keeping it just at the forefront of his mind. Martin had sunken himself so deep, the reverb of his mother had escaped his head and created a _hallucination_ …

Back in the hall, the plastic chair was gone, and it seemed like the other office doors had sunken into the walls. Martin could only hurry back the way he came: down to the archives.

Elias’s office was on the sixth floor. And there were only stairs.

“Martin—Hey!” Jon was rushing down the hallway with his usual uneven gait, and into the open landing of the steps. In Martin’s blurred vision—tears in his eyes and glasses crooked as he wiped them—Jon’s hair seemed to be flowing up and out, his glasses magnifying his eyes to a deep, almost glowing intensity. But with a clarifying blink, it became just the unkempt nature of Jon’s dry hair and the passing of the fluorescent lighting over his glasses. “Are you alright?”

“Y-Yes. Yes I’m fine. I just really needed… uh, needed some fresh air.” No windows were open around them. “I’m going to _get_ some fresh air.”

“Martin.”

“I’m fine! We can continue the performance review in just a moment… Just a _second_. I just… I think I have a lot on my mind.”

“Yes, I-I imagine you do.” Jon placed his hand on the long stair banister as he saw Martin do the same. It was ornate and beautiful—a way of distracting from its intended purpose: to halt someone from peering too eagerly down the lofted stairwell and taking the short way down—

Part of Martin was thankful for the distance Jon left between them. But another, far smaller but much louder part of him was sure Jon was unable (and probably unwilling) to place his hand on Martin in any comforting way. Why would he want to come any closer to a man that was very _clearly_ losing it when he barely had anything—

“W-Would you _like_ me to touch your arm?” Jon said suddenly, head turning and eyes fixing on Martin with unnerving… _accuracy_.

“I—what?”

Jon blinked and looked more generally at Martin’s face—eyes tracking over the tear stains no doubt. “I just mean: Would you _mind_ if I…” Jon lifted his hand and stiffly placed it on Martin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Martin.”

“For what?” Martin stared ahead over the balcony and down the stairwell. “Is this you firing me?”

“Elias won’t _fire_ you.” Jon said, grumbling something unintelligible as he turned his body in toward Martin. He put his back squarely toward Elias’s office door. “He does this with everyone.”

“Does what?” Martin wasn’t sure what he’d missed in _reality_ while thinking Elias was regurgitating the private memories he’d kept prepared. Martin wasn’t sure what possibly off-color, co-worker humor Martin had sputtered and coughed at, his heart starting to race and palms sweating. God, he’d never recover from looking so absolutely _stupid_ —

“Martin… I heard what Elias said.” Jon sighed. “What he _actually_ said.”

Martin didn’t think it could _get_ worse. “I-I don’t need your help reading between the _lines_ of—”

“He shouldn’t have brought up your mother like that. He—that was uncalled for. And I’m sorry.”

“My mother?” Martin was sure no one in the archives knew about his mother. Sure, they knew she existed in the same way all people could silently be sure _everyone_ has a mother _somewhere_ in the world. But Martin wasn’t sure that she existed outside of the mother- _concept_ for anyone. He was sure they all thought she baked blueberry pies and took him to his afterschool football practice with an extra bag of oranges for the team. “What do you know about my mother?”

“Well, not anything on _purpose_.” Jon muttered. “Elias really said a lot.”

“He talks about me? M-My _mother_?” Martin was now not entirely sure he’d gotten up from the plastic chair, instead still asleep on his hands and Tim too polite to wake him as he left. Or perhaps Martin was still in his bed at home, ignoring his alarm with a long but unconscious groan.

“No! No, Elias just—God, how does one _say_ this?”

“Say _what_?” Martin snapped. For once, at the top of a flight of stairs, Martin had the leverage to demand something. It was terrible and intoxicating and infuriating. “What are you talking about?”

“Elias and I…” Jon furrowed his eyebrows and waved his free hand around, as if he could stir up the words. “Listen, Martin, the only thing that matters is that Elias was wrong. And so is your mother.”

“How dare you talk about—”

“It’s not your fault. A-And neither of your parents deserve any such ‘credit’… You’re a great person, Martin. A very good man.”

Martin almost felt more offended than he was when Jon spoke of his mother. He hated being lied to so blatantly. The argument had formed, sharp on Martin’s lips, when Jon’s face suddenly softened, nearly pitying Martin for the words he was yet to hear. His eyes dropped to the railing Martin was still gripping, letting him sit in his own wild frustration, humiliation, and aggravation.

“ _I_ think you’re a very good man.” Jon said.

“You don’t—we aren’t friends.” The consideration complicated Martin’s hazy state of being, so he disregarded every feeling he ever thought to humor for Jon. “We aren’t. You didn’t even know I worked in the library.”

“Do I need to know your work history to know that you’re a good person?” Jon asked, glancing back up and meeting Martin’s eyes. “That sounds like someone else’s idea of… _value_.”

“ _Don’t_.”

“Sorry. I overstep when I try to _not_ use—I’m sorry.” Jon ducked his head and sighed. “But I mean it… if you can believe me.”

And Martin wanted to. He wanted to disregard the overwhelming strangeness of it all—the certainty that this _was_ a dream or that his two immediate superiors were playing a categorically horrific joke on him in order to circumvent having to give him severance by getting him to quit. Jon spoke so surely to Martin, for the first time since Martin had started working in the archives under him. It was the most Jon had ever said to him as well, meaning that either he was acting out of character to harm Martin or—worse—he simply wanted to.

Jon had observed Martin from an outside view, distance and scrutinous, just like many people had done before—including Martin himself—and found something redeemable. Found a reason to stop Martin at the stairs and comfort him. Touch him. Ground him.

Martin dropped one hand from the railing, the other still clinging to it as if the six floors below them could bend away. “What were you saying a-about credit?”

Jon smiled, blinking at Martin’s relinquish of skepticism. “You have your own value, Martin. No one gave you that. No one slipped that into your DNA from either side. You gave yourself value—you _are_ the value.”

“H-How can you say that?” Martin asked, speaking up for all the memories still swirling around in his head, like a low hanging fog. “How… How do you _know_?”

Jon laughed quietly, grinning at Martin. The joke was lost on him, but Martin wanted to live in the light of laughter for a long, repetitious second. “Trust me. I just know these things.”

“… So you’re not going to fire me?”

“I have no interest in firing you.” Jon said, somewhat regaining his professional composure. “And Elias doesn’t either. He brought you from the library for a reason.”

“I suppose.” Martin couldn’t think of what it possibly was. He shifted, suddenly remembering where and who he was with. “Well, better get back to work, yeah?” Martin nodded toward the stairs. Part of them still felt too surreal to take, even just one step at a time. Were they the ones right from his memories? Were they just as steep, just as worn but sharp, just as unforgiving—

“Uh, Martin,” Jon said quietly. He was gazing at the stairs with the same kind of concern, although looking simultaneously confused.

“Yes, Jon?”

“Would you mind, um,” Jon motioned to the stairs with both hands. “helping me back down to the archives? Going up these stairs I’m fine, but I always forget that it’s the coming back down that’s dangerous for me. Can’t exactly trip _up,_ you know?”

“Oh! Uh, sure.” Martin wasn’t going to say no to company.

“Thank you.” Jon looped his arm through Martin’s without a moment of hesitation—fear or resistance to get close. “I don’t mean to be a bother but,”

“We don’t want you falling down the stairs.” Martin said, feeling as if he was repeating himself.

“No, we don’t.” Jon patted Martin’s arm and leaned on him for the first step. “Don’t want you falling either.”

“I’m sure I could take it.” Martin said, patting his side.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you should try.” Jon said.

Jon’s face tensed as they eased down to the next step. They were steep—getting steeper, almost. Martin gripped Jon’s arm reflexively, as if there was an ending Martin knew. One he wanted to refuse.

“You’re right. It’s not for me to try. Anymore.” Martin’s feet landed on each step firmly, carefully. Everything was quiet, except for Jon’s clicking joints. “Thank you, Jon.”

“For what?” He said, blinking at Martin. Jon’s eyes were dark but tried shining in the cold-toned overhead lighting. They were trying to speak more than the man was. “They’re just stairs.”

Although first taken as a dismissal, Martin knew Jon was right. He could feel it in the softness of Jon’s gaze, the on-looking outsider that wanted to know him, the good of him: They were just stairs. And anything else was a memory, able to be fanned away like smoke.

**Author's Note:**

> So, we agree Martin should get that raise, right?
> 
> Thank you for reading xo  
> -m


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